


Ty and Zen

by ownedbyacat



Series: Tom and Jerry Tales [3]
Category: Cut & Run - Madeleine Urban & Abigail Roux
Genre: Gen, Tom & Jerry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-09
Updated: 2013-06-09
Packaged: 2017-12-14 11:33:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/836432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ownedbyacat/pseuds/ownedbyacat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Home from deployment, Ty is jumpy - fortunately, Zane knows exactly what he needs</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ty and Zen

Ty had forgotten how long it took - once he came back from a mission - to stop jumping at even the most innocuous sounds. He’d been home for almost three days now and he still jerked awake on a hot wave of adrenaline when a floorboard creaked, the shower started to drip or Zane moved a little hastily when turning over in bed.

At least he wasn’t sleeping with a hand wrapped around a knife handle this time. Zane’s presence definitely helped with that. So much so that he only reached under his pillow for a gun when a sound startled him in the middle of a dream. And the dreams weren’t nearly as frequent or as vivid as they had been after previous missions. Hell, he’d faced worse nightmares when the Orioles lost.

Ty looked around the bedroom a little blearily. Zane wasn’t in bed beside him and there was enough light still coming through the blinds to suggest that it wasn’t night yet. He remembered Zane suggesting he catch a nap before dinner, but it hadn’t been Zane’s voice that had woken him.

He took a deep breath to help dispel the lurking panic and tension when he heard the sound again. _Knife cutting tent canvas,_ his mind supplied helpfully and Ty blinked, muscles going taut again.

He reached out a hand to touch the bed’s headboard, relieved when his fingertips encountered solid wood. He was _not_ in a tent. He wasn’t even _near_ a tent. And there weren’t any knives close by, either.

Ty and Zane had discussed weapons and the possibility of flashbacks the night he had come home. They had agreed that all the knives in the house would be kept downstairs. Even Zane’s throwing knives that usually lived in his bedside drawer.

So, there was no tent and there were no knives. He was at home. With Zane.

And then the sound came again.

 _Knife cutting tent canvas,_ his mind insisted. But Ty was focussed now and alert and his straining ears caught a sound that made a mockery of his mind’s interpretation: a tiny, helpless meow.

More a mee-yee, really, high with distress. And then came the knife-ripping-canvas sound again.

But Ty was already moving, rolling across the wide bed to peer over the edge where a tiny black kitten had got its claws tangled in the bedspread.

“Jerry,” Ty cooed softly, already reaching to free the tiny creature. “Did Zane forget to tell you that you can’t climb out of your pen yet?”

That, after all, was what Zane had told him when he’d explained about building the thing. That the kittens couldn’t climb out of it, so they’d be safe while Zane was at work. Either Jerry hadn’t read the memo, or he had more in common with Ty than Ty had first supposed.

“You got bored, didn’t you?” he sing-songed to the black kitten as he settled back on the bed. “Thought you’d go and do stuff? Good kitty.”

Jerry rooted through the pillows, batting a paw at a fingertip Ty let peek out from under the blanket. He rubbed his nose against Ty’s chin, yawned when Ty scratched behind his ears and then settled close to Ty and snuggled, apparently none the worse for wear after being his fight with the bedspread.

Ty knew he was grinning, but he couldn’t help it. There was something sweet about a tiny kitten getting himself in trouble to come snuggle with you. He gently stroked Jerry’s soft fur, rubbed fingertips over his stomach and let himself be lulled back into sleep by the steady purr.

***

Zane stood in the bedroom door, glad he hadn’t called Ty’s name on the way up the stairs. His lover lay curled on his side with Jerry’s head tucked under his chin and his fingers on the black kitten’s tummy. He was fast asleep - so deeply under he’d not smelled dinner cooking and hadn’t heard Zane clattering around in the kitchen or coming up the stairs.

“Well done, Jerry,” Zane whispered as he fished in his pocket for his phone and snapped a picture. Ty, asleep and curled around Jerry, was an image worthy of being framed. Zane slipped out of the room, pleased with how things had worked out and recalled what Regine, the lady at the animal shelter had told him: _find the people that fit with you and life’s gonna be a lot easier. And that goes for cats, too._


End file.
